Nomad Jukebox 3

Before the ipod there was this:

These days (almost)everyone owns a portable mp3 player of one kind or another. But the best one ever to hit the shelves was the Creative Nomad Jukebox 3, it was this that started it all. It was released in early 2002, well ahead of its time and made mp3 players the thing to have. This was one of the first hard disk-based to really compete with minidisc players and knock them out of the market(minidisc sales havent recovered since then)

I would still buy this over any of the ipod players out there today. Ipods are all hype and nothing else. The ipods basically become a fashion statement and that is all it is. The ipods become so popular because of the cool factor. The menu system is not the greatest and for most things you have to dig deep down the menus. There’s only so much you can do with one and the compatible accessories you buy extra are ridiculously expensive. And surprisingly people keep buying them!!! (perhaps they don’t know you can by the same stuff of a generic brand from places like radio shack.)

Creative Labs was a pioneering sound card manufacturer right from the early 90’s they still make the best consumer sound cards for computers.

I received my Nomad 3 in may 2003 and a second one in may 2004. It comes in a 20 and 40gig versions. So at 64kbps you can play or record new material continuously for 52 days straight on a 40gig model!

The Nomad is still way better than any of the other hard disk based players because of the many features majority of the newer players dont have.

The best thing about the Jukebox is its recording capability. Even today this is one of the few portable mp3 recorders that can record from both analogue and optical(TOSLink) inputs. You can really notice the clarity in recordings from an optical source compared to an analogue one. The recording quality is unsurpassed compared to minidisc or anything else comparable. It shows the record level of the input source, which can be adjusted from the player itself.

The jog-dial used to scroll and control everything is very easy to use and makes navigating it very fast. There are 11 buttons on the top face and let you do anything with pressing just one button.

The updated firmware lets you change skins and customize the menu options. Almost everything can be configured to what you like. It has a bright backlit display, which you can change to green or blue or no backlight at all. The display is fairly big and lets you view a lot of information. Once playing it could be set on a screensaver mode where it displays the time (becomes a clock, no need for a watch!!!!)

So with this thing there’s no need to encode music after its been recorded, it does this in real time.

It even lets you chose the recording bit-rate from as low as 32kbps to 320kbps. It even lets you record in .WAV with minimal loss in quality (only a handful of devices support wav recording)

There is a smart sync feature incorporated in the Nomad that minidisc uses to automatically make tracks depending on the input level.

You have a lot of choice when it comes to playback. You can easily make playlists and has a selected music area where it adds what you play on the fly and lets you play it back in different repeat and shuffle combinations.

It also supports many of the same EAX effects on computer soundcards. You can choose from many different environments. There’s a time control option that lets you control how fast you want to play a track. This is good to have when you have voice recordings. The really good thing about this is the 4-band smart EQ that lets you adjust the high and low frequencies on any track. This is really useful when playing old tracks with a lot of ‘hiss’, pops or ‘hum’

It comes with the greatest choice of power input. It uses a 110/220Volt automatic AC adaptor that can be used anywhere in the world. It also has 2 removable Li-Ion batteries that last for up to 22 hours. Most of todays mp3 players don’t have removable batteries. And you don’t have to shut the unit down to charge the batteries.

The Nomad can be used as a data-backup drive as well. So you can have both music and data on it at the same time. To transfer files you can either use either a firewire(iLink/ IEEE 1394) or a USB cable. It uses the slower USB 1.1, the 2.0 wasn’t out when the Jukebox was introduced. The firewire transfer is very fast 1 gig transfers in a few seconds.

It even lets you record lectures with an optional wired remote/mic. The recording quality is surprisingly good even at low bitrates.

This unit can do everything that a PC can do when it comes to playing back music. It uses way less power and tapes very little space. It’s way better than any tape deck because CDs get scratched and tapes wear out over time. It has a 1/8 headphone mini-jack and 2 other line outs. So it’s possible to have a 7.1 channel speaker system configuration. It has an infrared wireless remote sensor so it can be controlled just like a TV.

The only undesirable thing is the bulky design. But it doesn’t mean it’s not portable, it just shows a little when in your pocket. You can stuff it in a backpack or just hold it in your hand. People hold CD players in their hands all the time. AND it looks COOL, way cooler than the ipod!

The Nomad 3 has been discontinued for a while now but is still available from some online vendors for well under $130US.